There hasn’t ever appeared to be much love lost between Madison Bumgarner and the Los Angeles Dodgers, and that resurfaced early in Sunday’s game as the fiery San Francisco Giants ace quickly made his vocal presence felt.
First, Bumgarner got into a shouting match with home-plate umpire Will Little a mere handful of pitches into the series finale at Oracle Park. Then Bumgarner turned his anger toward Max Muncy, who crushed a solo home run into McCovey Cove to give the Dodgers a 1-0 lead.
As he’s done with several of his majestic blasts, Muncy flipped his bat and took a quick beat to admire his homer. It was hardly egregious, but enough to get Bumgarner to signal for him to run around the bases.
Bumgarner continued to follow Muncy, who yelled back and had more words for the left-hander as he jogged toward home plate.
MAD. MAX. pic.twitter.com/65q7saXtgl
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) June 9, 2019
The home run was Muncy’s first hit off Bumgarner in seven career at-bats.
In previous matchups with the Dodgers, Bumgarner has typically focused his anger on Yasiel Puig. He’s taken exception to Puig’s reaction to hitting a home run and also initiated another confrontation after an innocent groundout to first base.
In September 2016, Puig sent Bumgarner a ‘#DontLookAtMe’ t-shirt in response to that being what was shouted in his direction during one of their tussles.
Sunday’s game was the 35th time (34th start) for Bumgarner in his career against the Dodgers. There’s speculation it could be his last, as the Giants may look to begin a rebuild of sorts. If that comes true, president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi did not rule out potentially trading with the Dodgers or other National League West teams.
